Hmm, no entries in a week, so probably time I caught up. I did vote… - John C. Kirk

Mar. 13th, 2003

11:57 pm

Hmm, no entries in a week, so probably time I caught up.

I did vote in the elections at Kings last week - wound up sitting down with my voting form and a booklet full of manifestos for half an hour. So, after I'd filled out the form, I couldn't tell you who I'd voted for in most categories - it was just a case of "this person looks like the best of the 3, so he gets my vote - next!" Anyway, things have calmed down this week, and you can walk through the building without being ambushed by people canvassing :)

I've now started swimming lessons (last Saturday was the first one). I'm in the "Improvers" class (as opposed to "Beginners I" or "Beginners II"), since I can actually swim a length - it's just style that's the issue (timing my breathing on front crawl). I'm basically at the bottom end of the group, which is rather embarrassing. On the other hand, I was speaking to one of the other women in the class (who is in a similar situation), and she mentioned that this is her third time on this course (it runs for 6 weeks), so I don't feel so bad about it. I spoke to the instructor afterwards, and offered to move down to an easier class if he thought it would be best, but he said he was happy for me to stick around. He also said that I should do better with some of the future lessons (different strokes), so that should boost my confidence a bit. One nice aspect of the class was that the instructor is a lot more friendly than some others I've had - when I did my motorbike lessons, and in dance class, I often get the instructor shouting at me for doing stupid things, so this made a pleasant change. One amusing thing - at the end of the class, he said "We'll continue breathing next week", so I'm now doing my chipmunk impersonation :)

I've been clearing up some loose ends this week. For instance, I'm continuing to tidy my room, by making periodic assaults on the boxes I have piled up. It's now been six months since I moved in, so I really should finish unpacking at some point... I've also been trying to tick things off my "to do" list, that have been hanging around for ages. For instance, I filled out a Police evaluation form, from the court case I was involved with in 1998 - better late than never. Similarly, I finally got round to phoning One-2-One (now T-Mobile or something) about my final bill from them. Basically, when I switched to Orange (March 2001), they sent me my closing bill for 9.38, and said "please pay this immediately", but never deducted the money from my account by direct debit (as they had done with all previous bills). So, that made it low priority for me, but I eventually got round to phoning them up. It then turned out that I was actually 9.38 in credit, so they're going to send me a cheque. So, I guess honesty pays off :) One of these days I'll finally get up to date on everything I'm supposed to do/have done...

There's a petition going round the MSc students at Kings at the moment, in an attempt to get the college to release provisional exam results (from our January papers), so I've signed that, and hopefully it will do the trick.

Back to dance class again this evening, and I've bought a ticket for their ball next week. Mind you, it now transpires that my DJ (which I last wore in 1998) no longer fits me. Rassum-fraggum belly... Well, it's not technically a black-tie event, just smart/formal dress, so I should be ok, but this is probably a hint that I need to do more exercise.

In other news, I think I need to start reading a different newspaper (and yes, that pun was intentional!). People were talking last night on IRC about the assassination of the Serbian Prime Minister. Now, I normally read "The Sun" every day (on their website), and they haven't even mentioned this story. It doesn't bother me if they put their own slant on news stories (loads of adjectives etc), but since they mention the potential war with Iraq every day, I figured that I was maintaining an awareness of current events. However, it appears that this is no longer the case. In the past, I've favoured tabloids over broadsheets, purely for logistical reasons - they're a much more convenient size to handle (particularly if you're sitting on the train). That's obviously not an issue with the website equivalents though. Anyway, a couple of people suggested "The Guardian", so I may give that a try. And at this point I'll throw the floor open to my readers - what paper do you read, and why? All comments welcome.

Comments:

the metro

i read the metro cos a) it's freeb) it's littleand c) it acutally covers real news, as opposed to what soap stars/royals/pop stars/other boring people get up to, and in a reasonably unbiased factually way (well, compared to things like the daily mail anyway, not that that takes much;))